“A carriage in front of my house at this time of night!” thought Dion, as he got out and paid the man.

He looked at the coachman and at the solemn brown horse between the shafts, and instantly realized that this was the carriage of a doctor.

“Rosamund!”

With a thrill of anxiety, a clutch at his heart, he thrust his latchkey into the door.  It stuck; he could not turn it.  This had never happened before.  He tried, with force, to pull the key out.  It would not move.  He shook it.  The doctor’s coachman, he felt, was staring at him from the box of the brougham.  As he struggled impotently with the key his shoulders began to tingle, and a wave of acute irritation flooded him.  He turned sharply round and met the coachman’s eyes, shrewd, observant, lit, he thought, by a flickering of sarcasm.

“Has the doctor been here long?” said Dion.

“Sir?”

“This is a doctor’s carriage, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.  Doctor Mayson.”

“Well, I say, has he been here long?”

“About an hour, sir, or a little more.”

“Thanks.”

Dion turned again and assaulted the latchkey.

But he had to ring the bell to get in.  When the maid came, looking excited, he said: 

“I don’t know what on earth’s the matter with this key.  I can’t either turn it or get it out.”

“No, sir?”

The girl put her hand to the key, and without any difficulty drew it out of the door.

“I don’t know—­I couldn’t!”

The girl shut the door.

“What’s the matter?  Why’s the doctor here?  It isn’t——?”

“Yes, sir,” said the girl, with a sort of intensely feminine significance.  “It came on quite sudden.”

“How long ago?”

“A good while, sir.  I couldn’t say exactly.”

“But why wasn’t I sent for?”

“My mistress wouldn’t have you sent for, sir.  Besides, we were expecting you every moment.”

“Ah! and I—­and now it’s past midnight.”

He had quickly taken off his coat, hat and gloves.  Now he ran up the shallow steps of the staircase.  There was a sort of tumult within him.  He felt angry, he did not know why.  His whole body was longing to do something strong, eager, even violent.  He hated his latchkey, he hated the long stroll in Hyde Park, the absurd delay upon the bridge, his preoccupation with the Muscovy duck, or whatever bird it was, voyaging over the Serpentine.  Why had nothing told him not to lose a moment but to hurry home?  He remembered that he had been specially reluctant to leave Rosamund that evening, that he had even said to her, “I don’t know why it is, but this evening I hate to leave you.”  Perhaps, then, he had been warned, but he had not comprehended the warning.  As he had looked at the stars he had thought of the coming of the most wonderful Child who had ever visited this earth.  Perhaps then, too——­He tried to snap off his thought, half confusedly accusing himself of some sort of blasphemy.  At the top of the staircase he turned and looked down into the hall.